ARCADE ENTHUSIASMMarch 3, 1976
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.
ARCADE ROBBEDFirst it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.
A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money gameWell there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."
'Quartermania' stalks South AustinWell you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."
Arcades fighting negative imageThis article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.
Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.The gameplay looked like this.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.
Work and Stack | Armadillo, Backpacker, Osmosis, Plume |
---|---|
Work but Don't Stack | Fortuna, Bully |
Work | Coolit, Antivenom, Superinsulator - not for EMP, Panacea |
Don't Work | Deadeye, Predator, Resist, Zero Drag |
IntroductionI first want to start by saying the reason for this post is to acknowledge all complaints and issues we the community are experiencing and give possible solutions to these issues. This post is not to slam or give hate towards the developers but to offer feedback.I tried to include as many complaints/issues as possible, and I included some of my own complaints and issues as well, they will be categorized with (opinion) if you want to know. This post is going to be quite lengthy so I neatly organized it into the following: Introduction Progression
Closing ProgressionLevellingWeapon XPSince the release of Black Ops Cold War and the first Double XP and Double Weapon XP event that ended on November 30th, XP has been the topic of discussion, mainly the Weapon XP. The community has been trying to acknowledge the problem and Treyarch insists that everything was working as intended until they "Increased Weapon XP earn rates". Even after that change, the Weapon XP earn rates are slow to this very day. The Weapon XP is also bugged as it often shows your weapon level higher than it actually is. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2 XP Tokens Previously in Modern Warfare 2019 and now in Black Ops Cold War, XP Tokens you use countdown in real-time and not in-game time. This decision is honestly nonsensical, it forces you to play non-stop for however long you used the XP Tokens. What if you need to use the washroom, get some snacks, your game crashes, an emergency happens, well you're out of luck. A quarter of the time is used to queue into the match anyway. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1 ChallengesWarzone ChallengesDo I have to say more? I am playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War not Call Of Duty: Warzone, I do not want to play Warzone to finish my Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War challenges, there are 2 completely different games, and not only that Warzone takes up almost 200 GB. There are a total of 9 Operator Challenges and 4\* Season Prestige Challenges that you have to complete in Warzone, that's 13\* Challenges in total. I don't think they realize that certain people don't like Warzone. There pushing Warzone so much it's honestly annoying. ( * - one of the season prestige challenges can be completed in either fireteam or warzone) Here's 1 possible way to fix this: A separate challenge tab for Warzone just like Zombies A way to earn it in Warzone and Cold War Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3 Camo Challenges We all know which camo challenges were talking about here. These challenges are insanely hard and rng to finish. They are the "Classic" and "Psychedelic" for the launchers. Classic requires you to "Get 2 kills without dying 20 times with all kills coming from the Cigma 2 in Multiplayer" and Psychedelic requires you to "Kill 2 or more enemies rapidly 25 times in Multiplayer". These challenges are nearly impossible to do because of Flak Jacket (talked more in-depth later). Also trying to shoot aerial scorestreaks with the RPG is nearly impossible as well, the rockets don't go in a straight line, they spiral, making it insanely hard to hit aerial scorestreaks, even hitting are hard Care Packages too. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1 GameplayStyle of playObjective playersThe main issue stems from this COD's streak system itself. This scorestreak system does not reward objectives at all. Players can play the objective all game and still be bottom of the leaderboard if they don't go out of their way and get kills. If there's no incentive to play the objective what's the point of winning the game, it's meaningless, all it is now team deathmatch in domination, hardpoint, combined arms, etc. Here's 1 possible way to fix this:
Campers This discussion happens every single COD so I'm going to keep this topic short and sweet. Ever since MW19, the camping situation has been out of control, the way that game promotes camping corrupted the community. Sitting in corners, listening with the volume of their headphones max, waiting for the perfect time to strike, they even prone in the middle of the map. I know there's not a lot you can do but just pointing it out there. Hmmmmm, just thought of something, maybe a playlist that disables the prone, how are they going to camp now HAHAHA, sorry, next topic. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1 Perks and ScorestreaksFlak JacketFlak Jacket, oh flak jacket, at least your not E.O.D from last year. Everything is fine about it except for when it comes to weapons that contain rockets. The weapons I'm talking about are all the Launchers (Cigma 2, and RPG-7) and the M79. Why is it when I hit someone with A ROCKET the Flak Jacket symbol pops up, how is he not dead, it's literally a rocket. Even in hardcore, it's like that. All that we ask is if we shoot a rocket at someone they die instead of the Flak Jacket symbol popping up. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3 VTOL Escort (opinion) Let's keep this one short and sweet as well, how is this scorestreak cheaper than the Chopper Gunner and Gunship, it's literally better than both of them. Napalm Strike (opinion) It feels like 3 go off every 2 minutes, and then depending on where they place it you either spawn in it or you are stuck cause they put it through the middle of the map. Care Package (opinion) Another short and sweet one, how is it that someone can open a care package and get a Chopper Gunner, how is that fair? The Care Package loot should only contain the War Machine and lower. That's just my opinion though. New Perk (opinion) Since I and many people don't like the scorestreak system this year I thought of a new perk. Killman! The Killman perk is the exact opposite of the Pointman perk from MW19. This perk makes it so Scorestreaks are earned through kills instead of game score. Killman Perk. In Perk 2 Slot. (Ignore my poor photoshop skills) VisibilityGeneralVisibility, in general, is awful compared to older titles but it is better MW19. Every operator blends into the map so well, shadows covering a player's whole body, it's like playing Where's Waldo but in Call of Duty. It's so bad we even have to change our video color settings for our display. It's probably much worse on a console as they're forced to have certain settings on. And on top of that, we're pretty much forced to put a flashlight on our gun to have any chance of seeing players. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example 4, Example 5 Best PlayGeneralIn Black Ops Cold War, Best Play is in every game mode, including "Search and Destroy" and "Prop Hunt". This year's Best Play implementation is the worse by far, people can sit in corners and just because they got 3 kills, boom, best play. I've seen people get Best Play even when they die in the Best Play, how is dying a Best Play? And then there's Best Play in Search and Prop Hunt, can I just ask why, what's the point? In Search and Destroy we want to see the last kill and/or the defuse, we don't want to see someone getting 2 kills back to back. And for Prop Hunt, we want to see where that last prop was, and if somebody kills 2 props back to back, you guessed it, best play. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2 MiscellaneousCamosLooksThe looks of the mastery camos on certain guns are disappointing and look lazy. Just take a look at some of these guns. Krig 6 KSP 45 Then other mastery camos look amazing. AUG Bullfrog Please fix and update the certain mastery camos on guns, they look horrible. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2 UIStart-up MenuWhy is it that when I open Cold War I have to choose to play Cold War, stop promoting your other games, especially Modern Warfare, which is last year's game! If it's just Cold War with Warzone on the start-up menu that is fine, aka what we had before. Eventually, every single COD is going to be on the start-up screen. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3 Pre-game lobby The pre-game lobby is very nice looking except for 1 thing, the lack of visibility of the player identity. Black Ops 4 did this greatly by showing the username, emblem, calling card, prestige icon and level. Now, all we have is a username, prestige icon and rank. What happened? Why downgrade? We work hard for certain emblems and calling cards and we want to show that. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1 Quality of life Here is some nice quality of life changes that would be useful:
Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2 Performance Since the release of the game, the performance has been bad. I've seen games crashing when on high zombies rounds, just going throughout the menus, and just looking at the settings while in-game. Yes I understand this stuff does happen during development, and yes it has gotten better since the release but it's been bad. It feels like everything I click I get a UI Error. Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2 Waste of space (opinion) I just want to point out one nitpick I have. What is this wasted space? Waste of space in Player Identity This has been locked since the release and has just been sitting there, with no purpose, waiting for the day it will be used. Skill-Based MatchmakingAh yes! The elephant in the room, Skill-Based Matchmaking! Or Performance-Based Matchmaking or Experience Optimised Matchmaking or Retention-Based Matchmaking, but for the point of simplicity, I'm just going to refer to it as SBMM. Anyways you get it, a system where it takes your skill and bases your matches around that skill. You know there's something wrong when there are countless posts every day talking about it, and when it trends on Twitter every month, when your favourite content creator talks about it, and when you, yourself, complain about it every day, to the point of not caring about you K/D or your W/L.In all my years of gaming, I have never seen SBMM this strong. I had to get better throughout the years to achieve the skill I have today. I started playing COD in Ghosts (yes, I know, ghosts. I did enjoy the game though, still waiting for Ghosts 2 for the campaign...) and I was getting pummelled, but I didn't stop, I kept trying to get better, and I did! Now with this SBMM and the skill level, I'm at now it feels like I'm playing CDL lobbies. Just the other day I went 38/45 and the enemy that was on the top of the leaderboard went ONE HUNDRED AND ONE TO EIGHTEEN. Tell me how this is fair, I have never gotten 100 kills in a match, let alone get a 5.6kd (technically I did get a 100 kill game but it was on shipment in MW and anyone can get kills on that map). I can't even play with my friends because either I'm not good enough or I'm too good. This egregious SBMM system is making Call Of Duty unplayable, I get it you need to protect the new players, that's fine, but there's a point where you're not just protecting them anymore, your giving participation trophies away, and making the good players suffer. This whole SBMM system is just a placebo, putting you into way harder matches just to put you into easy matches to make you want to play more. I have an idea for the people at Treyarch and Activision, can you make a playlist without SBMM just to test, just to collect data, please. Something like this: A fully optional \"No SBMM Test\" quick play filter OR A playlist that has \"No SBMM\" that the players are not aware of Posts I saw talking about this: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example 4, and countless others. ClosingI hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope I included the main points in the community. Hopefully, someone at Treyarch or Activision sees this as well. If anyone has something to add feel free to comment. Also, please don't attack anyone that works at Treyarch or Activision, I want this to remain civil.I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope everyone has a good day! |
Gotta Collect 'Em All: Hype Decks and Popular Playing Card Series submitted by EndersGame_Reviewer to cardistry [link] [comments] When you're into cardistry, you'll know a thing or two about playing cards. They are, after all, the tools of the trade. And you'll quickly discover that there's a lot of different custom decks out there, many of which are great for card flourishing. A vast amount of cards that have already been produced, and there's steady flow of new cards that are being released on an ongoing basis. Arguably the most popular playing cards beloved by cardists and collectors alike are what some refer to as "hype decks". These are decks that have effectively become a brand of their own by virtue of their sheer popularity. In the last few years alone there are several "brands" that have generated a huge wave of momentum. Almost every new release is quickly sold out, and previous releases don't take long to fetch high prices in the secondary market, as buyers scramble to "collect 'em all". In this article we'll introduce you to some of the more popular series of this sort, which are beloved by both cardists and by playing card collectors. FONTAINES The Fontaine brand is one of the biggest and most recognizable brands in the world of playing cards today, especially in cardistry circles. When you first see a Fontaine deck of cards you might wonder why. After all, what is there to get excited about card backs which have a lower-case "f" put together in a simple and minimalist design, and card faces that are mostly standard? The reason for the success of this brand is the man behind it, Zach Mueller. Zach began making a name for himself with his creative cardistry videos, some of which went viral on youtube. Inspired by the iconic Jerry's Nugget casino deck which appears later on this list, around 2013 Zach whipped up a simple design of his own, printed the deck, and began using it in his cardistry videos. It wasn't even originally conceived as deck that would be published more widely, nor was including it in his cardistry videos originally intended as a marketing gimmick. But the popularity of his videos did have the result of producing a demand for decks like the one Zach was using. When he tried his hand at crowdfunding one, it became an instant success. Zach built on this success with further releases of the same design but in different colours, and later expanded his Fontaine brand to include clothing and other merchandise. Today the Fontaine company has a significant number of releases every year, and they are typically so much in demand that each sells out in minutes. While many of the initial decks didn't evidence much variety aside from recolouring the back design, in recent times we have witnessed some more innovation, such as collaborations with other artists, and a UV black-light edition. https://preview.redd.it/bk51kexhhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7ad5a040ac2cd67d9644f02041f3937ba2e28642 ORBITS The Orbit decks come from magician Chris "Orbit" Brown, with involvement from designer Daniel Schneider. The Orbit series is extremely popular with card flourishers, and it's not surprising why. The circle design on the card backs makes it ideal for cardistry. The first version of the deck was blue, had a print run of only 2500, and only managed to hit its Kickstarter target on the final day when it was put up for crowdfunding in 2015. In contrast, today collectors can't get enough of them! The fourth edition alone had a print run of ten times that amount, and the first few versions of the deck will now cost a pretty penny on the secondary market - if you can find them. Common to most of the decks in the series is of course the signature circle look of the card backs. But there's also the regular presence of light-hearted jokers, mini-astronauts, and even tiny orbitting rockets on the card backs, all of which capture something of the galactic and space theme, and add elements of warm humor. There have been minor tweaks to the design to ensure that each deck is not just a simple recolouring of the previous version. The V7 deck is noteworthy for its retro pink and blue colours, and for including a tribute to the failed mission of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, and has the added bonus of being a very cleverly marked deck. The face cards of the Orbit decks mostly feature a style borrowed from the classic Arrco decks, which gives them a slightly different feel from your typical Bicycle deck, while ensuring that they still have a very familiar, recognizable, and practical look. Some of the decks feature even members of the Orbit crew as the court card characters. It is certainly a successful formula, and these are versatile playing cards that are both novel and familiar enough to make them suit a variety of purposes, from card flourishing to card magic. As with most other entries on this list, the success of the series has generated an increased demand for the first decks in the series, which are not easy to get hold of. https://preview.redd.it/0lakhcmihcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=424b4fba74ee4be5d763fb2439b270df0d319019 JERRY'S NUGGET The history of the Jerry's Nugget decks is a fascinating one, and it even includes a great detective story. The short version is that these striking red and blue decks were first printed in the early 1970s for Jerry's Nugget Casino in Las Vegas. They ended up in storage instead of being used at the casino, and eventually made their way to the gift shop, where they were sold for a dollar or two each. At this point they were discovered by some big name cardists, who began popularizing them via their videos, and spoke highly of their handling qualities, which were the result of printing methods that couldn't be replicated with modern methods. The demand for them grew, but by this time they were sold out. With a limited supply and increased demand, they slowly became a holy grail for collectors, prices typically reaching $500 per deck on the market. Around 2019 Lee Asher became involved with a project to reprint the cards, to make them readily available again, and put them in the hands of a new generations of cardists and collectors. A deal was brokered between Expert Playing Card Company and Jerry's Nugget Casino, and with the help of an incredibly successful Kickstarter project that fetched nearly half a million dollars, a new edition of Jerry's Nugget decks hit the market. The new decks are almost like the original, but consist of a Modern Feel version printed by USPCC and a Vintage Feel version printed by EPCC. The scene was ripe for capitalizing on the popularity of these classic decks, and so the deck was subsequently reprinted in colours like Teal, Coral, Black, Steel Grey, Yellow, Orange, Green, and purple. There are also some limited editions like Pink, and there are even special limited editions with gilding. Many card flourishers love the minimalist look of this series, the famous name and iconic look, and the variety of different colours make them ideal for collectors. https://preview.redd.it/kuxzzlgjhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8356844549aedec90eda4b447063afc00faf88f5 CHERRY CASINO The Jerry's Nugget decks aren't the only decks that capitalize on the public interest in old-time casinos. This is also the concept that lies at the heart of the Cherry Casino decks, which is a series of playing cards produced under the Pure Imagination label. Pure Imagination Projects was founded in 2013 by Derek McKee, and the first Cherry Casino deck was produced around 2015 in a bright aqua colour. The idea was to draw on the image of an old time casino, hence the classic cherry artwork familiar from slot machines, an iconic symbol of gambling. Several versions then followed in successive years, as the Cherry Casino decks slowly grew in popularity One of the drawcards of this series is the bold metallic ink used on the cardbacks for most of these decks, which instantly sets them apart from your average deck. One of my personal favourite colours in this series is the Tahoe Blue, which is inspired by one of the clearest and deepest lakes in the United States, Lake Tahoe. The use of metallic ink on card backs creates a gorgeous and inviting pearlescent blue that is hard to get enough of. The Cherry Casino decks are also very versatile and practical, and the relatively standard card faces makes them ideal for card magic or for playing card games. Yet the striking card backs also makes them very appealing for cardists and collectors. This creates the ideal combination of something striking and something simple, which is the greatest strength of the Cherry Casino series. The vibrant and eye-catching colours, set them apart from the competition, and give them the magnetic quality that collectors look for, while they remain functional and suitable for a variety of uses. The first decks in the series are especially prized by collectors, since they are long out of print, and entered the market long before anybody realized how successful this series would become over time. https://preview.redd.it/uvqcml7khcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ef474b844f7af286d7d3c3bf3fb5a9f67bead9e VIRTUOSO Virtuoso, commonly called The Virts, is a group of Singaporean cardists, originally founded by Huron Low and Kevin Ho. Other team members joined them over time, and they began releasing cardistry videos on their youtube channel. Around 2012 one of their cardistry videos went viral and was eventually featured on the Discovery Channel, which only increased the growing interest in their work, especially their creative card flourishing videos. It was also around this time that The Virts came up with the idea of designing a deck of card that was specifically geared towards cardistry. They used a design that was strongly geometric in flavour, and where even the court cards and number cards were optimized for card flourishing, to enhance the visual aesthetic of cards in motion. Today it's quite common for a deck to be optimized for cardistry, and there's a ready market waiting to buy decks like this. But at the time this was a groundbreaking idea, and even somewhat of a financially risky one. But card flourishers welcomed the very first Virtuoso deck with open arms, and the deck proved to be more successful than ever imagined. Since the release of their first deck, The Virts have continued to release follow-up decks on a somewhat regular basis. Typically each new release is accompanied by a flashy video that showcases the amazing cardistry of The Virts themselves, which is cleverly accentuated by their cardistry-friendly cards. Their signature geometric design is common to all of the decks released so far, and the eye-catching colours and consistently handling qualioty ensure that card flourishers love it. Recent times have seen the rate of their releases slow down, but news in 2020 about their latest deck - which is scheduled to come out in 2021 - generated a new wave of excitement. Loyalty to the Virtuoso brand and decks is evidenced by the fact that many people were ready to pre-order the new deck sight unseen. https://preview.redd.it/48zmr2okhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd5fcc61431a3e2764fd95bb5dba12a79658817d ORGANIC PLAYING CARDS One of the more fun entries in this list are the food-inspired decks created by Organic Playing Cards (OPC). This brand is originally the brainchild of Cameron Toner and Nathan Lex, who started OPC while they were in college, combining Cameron's love for card magic and Nathan's love for cardistry. The company has since evolved, and others have come on board as they grew. Their original goal was simply to produce a fun deck of banana-themed cards, now known as Peelers V1. Since then they've gone on to produce a cornucopia of fruit-inspired novelty decks. The concept of what you can expect from an OPC deck is a simple one. Typically it's a deck that features two pieces of fruit on the card backs, some humorous changes to the court cards that incorporate that fruit, an adjusted colour scheme, and a fun take on the tuck box. For example, the Squeezers V1, V2, and V3 decks are orange, lemon, and grape-fruit themed retrospectively, and the tuck boxes are designed to look like juice boxes, complete with an ingredient list. The Snackers decks are themed on strawberries and blackberries, and come in a resealable package typical of a bag of candies, and even include an artificially added scent that smells like the fruit. The latest additions to this popular series have included an avocado themed deck (Avocardos), and in somewhat of a departure from the usual fruit theme and look, a corn-themed harvest deck (Shuckers). So they are exploring new directions, but they haven't run out of fruit just yet, and I look forward to see what they come up with next. https://preview.redd.it/56o6yqelhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b9aec71b43d043c10980cee343e3bf3e8ffed30 WHAT TO BUY AND HOW MUCH TO PAY? Buying and pricing In the end, you should buy what you like, not what other people tell you to like. But how much do these decks typically cost? Latest releases typically sell at retail price, and don't cost a fortune. Although in some cases, especially with in-demand brands like Fontaines, you have to be right at your computer when a new deck is released, and be among the first set of buyers who are fortunate enough process a purchase in the few minutes before they are sold out. Otherwise you'll have to rely on resellers, some of which can have inflated prices. Older decks for virtually all of these series, however, tend to command much higher prices. This is simply a matter of supply and demand: as the number of collectors grows, more and more people want them, while the supply is limited, because the original decks are long out of print and out of stock at retailers. You'll have to rely on the secondary market to try to source these, and expect to dig deeper in your wallet if you want to get first and second edition decks of many of the above series. Investing and re-selling When collectors see some of these decks selling for over $100 on the secondary market, it can be tempting to think that it's a good idea to buy a stash of decks in the hope that you'll hit a jackpot with a brick of decsk that will be worth a bundle down the line. The reality is that this is hard to predict. When most of these decks were first released, nobody knew that they would become big hits over time. It's only as a series or brand generates momentum and establishes a loyal following, that the prices of the original editions start to rise. For example, I have a Peelers V1 deck, and these are now worth up to US$150 today. At the time I picked it up, it was just a novelty deck from an unknown brand, and I used it as an everyday deck for card games and card magic. Who was to know the success that OPC would later become? Meanwhile I've just been using it casually for card games! Much the same is true for the very first Fontaines deck, which costs a fortune now, but at the time was really just an ordinary deck. The playing card market is fickle and future hits are almost impossible to predict. If you want to earn money, rather than gambling on playing cards, you're better off spending your time working for money at your regular day job. Other popular series Are there other series besides the ones covered above? For sure. Daniel Schneider's series of Black Roses deck also has its passionate collectors, as do the Golden Nugget decks, the Gemini Casino decks, and the NOC decks. The Planets series by Vanda was also popular for some time, but with the release of all the planets this is obviously now complete. There are also people who collect anything produced by a particular brand, such as Anyone Playing Cards. Perhaps even that new release you're thinking of purchasing will become the start of a successful new series or brand - you can never really tell! https://preview.redd.it/ppwyhb5mhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75a4ee69f8af72d0c022c24d50e3581b80066959 HAS THE INDUSTRY JUMPED THE SHARK? More and more, faster and faster In the first few years of the boom in the playing card market that was created by the arrival of crowdfunding around 2009, new releases were typically produced either as a mass market deck, or as a numbered limited edition. That seems to have changed in the last few years, and the number of permutations for a particular deck seems to be more than ever before. First of all we get recoloured versions of the same deck, multiple times over. Then in addition we get a numbered deck, and a gilded deck... and multiple combinations of all of these. It starts to become impossibles for collectors to get a complete collection. In addition, in some cases, a very limited edition of a popular series is produced at a high price tag, like the $75 Cherry Casino House Decks, putting it out of the reach of most collectors, except those with very deep pockets. In other cases, companies are releasing decks in different colours so fast (here's looking at you, Jerry's Nuggets), that collectors can hardly keep up. The inevitable question arises whether some of these developments are unhealthy. How much is too much? All this understandably makes some collectors begin to feel a little jaded, and wonder if some of these series have jumped the shark. Are some creators starting to take the mickey out of collectors, knowing that they will want to "collect 'em all", even if they have to spend ridiculous amounts to do so? Is this capitalism gone mad, and are producers becoming too motivated by trying to make big bucks? If this trend continues, it can start to feel like price-gouging and greed, and creators run the risk of sucking the joy out of collecting, and losing their customers. All this means that producers have to be careful in the decisions they make about what they release, and not simply be motivated by making money. Collect 'em all? But there's a lesson in this too. It doesn't make sense to mindlessly collect every single thing. But if you do think carefully about what you want to collect, it can be a lot of fun to collect series like the ones covered here. By all means collect 'em! But maybe just not all of them. At least, not all the time. https://preview.redd.it/c50y53umhcg61.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f00f71fa02141ee251913695a2cc7fba823a260 Author's note: I first published this article at PlayingCardDecks here. |
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